50 Shades of Cry
by SevenStets
Summary: Cry is blanketed in several layers of whimsy and frivolity, but something darker lurks beneath those layers, something more meaningful. Cry is, after all, a human, no matter how much he'd like to think otherwise.
1. Introduction

50 Shades of Cry

Introduction

They say a man with no face can show no emotion and isolates himself from the world. He is a sole idol, and effigy of ambiguity. He remains dormant in expressional limbo. A mystery untouched by the elements. He is Cryaotic.

Cryaotic lies in wait, lurking behind the thinly veiled netting of the web. His mission, to entertain the masses of dead-panned souls. Perhaps that's why he shys behind the apathetic exterior, hoping he can reach you with only his voice. Hoping he can crack your mask. He cares not for fame, nor recognition, but in death, he'll gaze deeply into the stars not wondering, but with knowledge that he's served his purpose. For the moment, he'll lie in wait, his dwelling only lit by the soft glow of his screen illuminating the slinking shadows. Alone. Sitting in near silence, he is alone, but lonely? Only Cry could answer that.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Cry, hi."

"Hi!"

"I didn't think I'd get through here. Right, I have a-"

"So, Robin, can I call ya Robby? Where ya' from, sir?"

"Connecticut, and I'm a girl, actually. I, well, my friend has a question."

"That explains the voice. Okay, shoot."

"Kay, she really wants to know, what do you have behind your mask?"

"Oh, I see, well that's a very interesting question. You see, it's another mask!"

"Hilarious, I'll be sure to tell her just that."

"Good. Great. You tell her I said hi, or him, or both, I don't judge."

"Oh, and one more thing, if that's okay."

"Bring it."

"Are you ever lonely?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you ever, like, get lonely?"

"What? No. How could I be? I have all these friends! I got Russmoney and Scott and Snake and Red and all those. All those guys. We're friends, hence, Cry and friends, see?"

"That's not what I meant. I mean, more in a, er, romantic sense."

"No, no way, I'm happy like this. I am. It's all good. I'm strong, independent white man and I don't need no woman."

A few more hours of this pass before Cry closed the livestream quietly, blanking the monitor and abandoning his room to the darkness dripping from the windowsill. Several tedious-ish questions passed, but one still lingered. It didn't cross his mind much, the prospect of being lonely. He had friends, sure, but perchance he wanted something more. Sure there were a good amount of jokes about Cheyenne and him, but come on. They were bros. They just didn't have that something. Something less comprehensible than camaraderie, something that sparked his soul and lit his blood ablaze with passion. Maybe he was getting ahead of himself here. He was beginning to sound like a romance novel. There was no point to arguing this with himself at the moment anyways, not at this hour of the morning. He rotated his arms slowly, cracking his shoulder blades, easing the tension. He collapsed onto his double bed, blanketing himself in his thin sheets. Maybe he should install some ceiling pillows. If an earthquake struck, like they do, he'd need some plushy comfort. Time for sleep. He'd need some time for thinking clear times.

…

Cry awoke with a jolt. What? No, no, his alarm didn't go off. He only got an hour of sleep, no, what is? His phone. It was his phone, spazzing to a caliber of an epileptic horse. Who was calling him at this hour?

"Hello?" he answered curiously, not bothering with glancing at the caller I.D.

"Hey, Cry, guess who it is?"

"Uh,"

"I'm Pewdiep-!"

"What is it, Pewds?" He wasn't too up to deal with any shenanigans, not with this amount of the sleepies weighing down his eyes.

"Well, someone has a case of the grumps."

"It's six. In the morning."

"Not in Italy or Sweden, or wherever the fuck I am."

"Yes, well we well-mannered American men operate on a completely different time zone."

"Right, right, so, let's cut to the chase, Cry. Hi, by the way."

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Hi."

Cry clicked the glowing red button on his keypad and let it fall to the floor. Fuck politeness, he wanted his beauty sleep. He'd be sure to apologize at a later date.

All was well now, he could rest his weary head and- the phone began to pulsate once more with a catchy jingle accompanying it. He snatched the pillow cushioning his cranium and buried his face in the feathery-filled sac. Well, maybe he could stave off the drowsiness for a few hours. Fuck.

…

"Video games, they're what's for dinner." He whimsically mused this, plopping himself into his rolling chair. "So, let's rock and roll." Hm. He pondered frivolously as to what to play as the options began to fly through his thoughts. There was that pigeon-dating game. No, that was too fucked up even for him. Some TF2 to start the party should be good. It felt reasonably adequate. Cry maximized the Steam application and sorted through games, not before deleting all notifications. He rotated his neck and faux-popped his fingers, making the clicking sound with his tongue. "Wish I could be sleeping right now, but, I'll take it." He took solace in his go-to phrases. His attention was then drawn to another program, though. It was Skype. Switching windows, he answered the call from Russ.

"Hey, Cry, what's up?"

"Hi."

"Hi Cry!"

"Hello, Cheyenne."

"Cry! Hi!"

"Hello, Battlestar."

"Hello, Cry"

"We're not doing this."

"Hello there, Red, and a hello to you too, Scott."

"If this is going to be the extent of this conversation, I'm going to need some goldfish."

"Hello, Snake."

Cry leaned back into the coarse fabric of his desk chair wondering what his compadres had in store this morning, honestly, he was surprised they'd be up after their eventful Saturday night. Surely they had a might trouble slumbering.

"Not that I'm not thrilled, but what was your reason for calling us all?" Snake asked in his all-about gruff tone.

Russ replied here, "Well, it was s'posed to be me and Red, but it escalated quite quickly."

Cryaotic chuckled breathily, just another situation spiraled out of control. Like a staircase. A spiral staircase with a lovely banister. Probably mahogany, that's a pretty good quality of wood. All digressions aside, he should focus. Focus on how life could provide so many distractions. Merely a well-placed whisper could send him on a tangent of preposterous proportions. As drull as that may sound to the folks back home, his audience seemed to enjoy his rambles. Maybe that's my his SCP video has so many view, it's fundamentally him ranting for over half an hour, sometime he himself couldn't-

"Cry!" a female voice shrieked from his speakers.

Cry's ears and mind suddenly came into focus to Cheyenne's voice. "I- uh, hi."

"So what do you think?"

"I think, that I need a drink." Not the slyest way of avoiding a question, but he'll take it. Anyhow, his throat was feeling a touch parched. Flinging himself to the floor he mustered up the motivation to trek to the kitchen. He found himself indecisively lumbering in front of the fridge, he needed to choose wisely or the outcome could be drastic. Well, he figured anyways. Why did he have so many watermelons anyways? He didn't remember buying this many. What the fuck was with all these melons? Seriously. He eventually settled on a quenching, refreshing, satisfying glass of liquid apples. Some may call it apple juice. He felt it was a fair assumption. He plucked a striped bendy straw from a draw, mahogany or oak, he wasn't quite sure, and completed his delicious beverage. He was set.

Upon the reentry of his room, he found himself not only greeted by the chattering of his chaps, but also by the tune of his cellular device. Actually checking for the identity of the assailant this time around, he found it again to be his international pal from across the Atlantic. Not to mention the eighteen missed calls. Something may be afoot. Cry answered puzzled.

"Cry! Cry! Why?"

"Hello to you too, Pewdie."

"You hung up on me you penis-faced-dick-jerk!"

"So you called me eighteen times in that five minutes I was getting a drink?"

"Don't question me, dammit! I'll shove bottle caps down your throat and take you a fancy restaurant cause I would feel really bad about it later and hope to make up for it with delectable desserts."

"That would be lovely."

"Yes, yes it would. Anyways,-."

"Hey, Cry, psst, who are you talking to?" Russmoney asked in a mock-whisper voice.

"Don't worry about it, guys, just go back to your thumb twiddling or whatever the fuck you guys do when I'm not around."

"Cry! Cry, who are those voices? They talk about me like I'm not here, it really hurts my feelings."

"Cry!"

"Cry!

"Cry!

"Cry!"

"Will you all just shut the fuck up?!" These people, ones constantly craving his attention. They crept. Crept into his mind and settled there, feeding on his praise and acknowledgement until they swelled to the outskirts of his brain and threatened to break the very boundaries of his sanity. The pressure was too much, too immense to fathom for a man. A man who stares aimlessly at horror games til the wee hours of the morning, a faceless man uncomprehending of his fame. A fame he wasn't even sure he even deserved.

In the heat of all his conviction he broke, he flung the icy drink from his grip as it careened towards his computer. The blur of rage and confusion settled and realization sunk in. The nectar au apples seeped into the crevices of his keyboard and into the exposed areas of his processing unit. A blinding spark shot through the keys and sprung into the monitor. Cryaotic began to panic as he ignored his better judgment and launched himself at the hardware. He frantically button mashed, he fingers flitted across the plastic, sparking letters and numerals at a speed that Mozart would envy.

The screen began to flicker, and Cry shakily tried to close out Steam, only opening several games in the process.

"Cry, cry, what's happening, what's that sound?" someone cried out from the chat window, the voice was unrecognizable and staticy. "Cr- re- yo- oh-kay?" Strangely this seemed as well to be the case from Pewdiepie, may be some sort of emission, he didn't know what that meant, but maybe. This was all their fault, if they hadn't've badgered Cry like that, no this was his fault, he couldn't blame this on them. He shouldn't've lashed out.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck, what is happening?" With that, a blinding bolt of energy sapped out from the faulty technology and everything faded to black. No loading screen, no end credits, just black. Silence.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Cryaotic felt limp, as if his body refused to connect to the synapses in his brain. He thought that's how it worked, anyways. He couldn't remember much of what he was doing before this point, he didn't recall having copious amounts of alcohol prior to this event. His saliva had the faint taste of liquid apples. Apple martini? Did he even know how to make those? In retrospect, he probably should have been wondering as to his location than his Latin drink-making capabilities. The ground beneath his sprawled-out form didn't feel like the rough carpeting of his bedroom. It felt more like a cobblestony environment. Curiouser and curiouser. That was from something, he was sure of it. If only he could bring himself off the ground he could investigate this a little more. The least he'd be grateful to do is open his eyes. Where the hell was he anyways?

"H-hey, is that you, man, get up." Cry distinctly heard a voice there. It was almost right above him, it didn't sound threatening, though. It was, familiar. Weird.

"Oh, shit, shit, no! Cry, man you gotta get up, I don't know where we are, everything's all fucked up. Oh fuck."

Russ. It had to be. Why was he so freaked out, though? It was probably my leg hairs, they like to show off 'cause I wear these shorts a lot, but it's nothing to wig out over. I felt my side prodded a few times, urging me to move. Taking a long, dramatic breath, I worked up the will to thrust myself forward.

"Dude, calm down, we're cool, see. We're fine. We're in someplace I have no knowledge of. We're good."

"I think we're in a school or something, it's creepy as hell, though." Russ seemed to have calmed down significantly with the knowledge his buddy was now conscious and among the living.

"Hm." Cryaotic scanned the area, they were in a hallway of sorts, more like a series of hallways staircasing above his head. The 'cobblestone' he felt before was no more than mere tile. Understandable, he didn't have much experience with lying on either surface. Something about this place, though. It felt like he'd been here before, but in a tenser situation. "Russmoney, I think I know where we are."

"Well do enlighten me!"

"That school. That god damn, school! I don't understand what's going on here."

"Neither do I. You're not making much sense."

"Don't you get it? We're in the school, I don't know how we got here, but. We're in, we're in White Day." The room fell still, Russ didn't say anything after that, but it didn't look like he doubted it. He just stared. Stared into the darkness of the dimly-lit room. "We've gotta get out of here before some fucked up shit happens."

Cry rose from his position on the floor. Without a flinch, Russmoney latched himself onto Cryaotic's sleeve. "Can we just, stay here a minute, it's a lot to take in. You know what I mean?"

"I'd love to, but I really don't want to wait here and run into that creepy-ass janitor." Russ paused, but reluctantly stood up as well. "Besides, we keep going and we might score some choice soybean milk. You'd like that right? We'd be set."

"Don't act so fucking calm about this, Cry. As if you do this on a daily basis."

"I'm sorry, Russ, I didn't mean to, I'm just trying to be positive. We'll find a way out of this, I've beat this game before."

"Whatever."

The duo made their way through the double doors and into the adjacent hallway. Though already having been immersed in the scenario before, this time it was seemingly more terrifying, if they died, would they die for real? He shuddered at the thought, but it kept him focused. At least his ADD wasn't acting up.

"We should probably look for a flashlight or a lighter. I forget where they were, though."

"You're more of an expert than me, lead the way."

"Okay, okay I got this. I'm good, I'm great. I'm going to die aren't I? That, would not be fun. That would suck. Balls."

"Comforting as balls are, Cry, I'm a little unsettled by your mumbles." Russ had shortened some of the distance between them since the beginning of their quest. His shirt brushed against Cry's, making him all the more aware of their closeness. The proximity made him slightly startled, but braver all the same. Curiouser and curiouser. Seriously, what was that from?

"Cry, what's that?" Cryaotic was alerted once more to the soft glow of what seemed to be a flashlight.

"Fuck fuck fuck! That's the janitor, run for it!"

"All these doors are locked, though!"

"Oh, god, he's gonna fuck our whole day up with his, aw, fuck no. Well, Russ, it's been a pleasure to game with you." The musing had come out in a manner of jest, but there was an underlying layer of fright to it. Would their vidjah gam-ing days really be coming to an end? A surreal death at that, being caught up in a video game in the most literal of senses. A surreal, but fitting death.

As the light drew nearer and nearer, their anxiety grew ever more apparent. They began to tremble, drawing closer to each other as if to seek protection in the other's warmth. They didn't have enough time to dwell on this though as their blood was breaking though their veins at the rate it was pumping.

"Cry, I've got an idea. You run pass the beater to distract him while I beat his shit up, all right?"

His plan perplexed him, "He's a videogame, character, I don't think it works like that. Besides, you couldn't beat an egg."

"Who even says tha-."

"What the hell are you guys doing?"

"Oh, it's Scott, I apologize, friend. I really thought it was the janitor coming to ruin our good times." The figure behind the electronic light came into focus, revealing to the trembling protagonists to the identity of the perpetrator. Scottjund.

"Shut up, Cry," Russmoney commented before sprinting up to Scott and lightly socking his arm. "You scared the shit out of me, man. I was about to piss myself."

"That would be unpleasant for all of us."

"Indeed it would, sir," Cry interjected.

"Where'd you get the flashlight?"

"I was with Snake earlier, he beat the shit out of some janitor and I lifted it from him."

"What happened to him?"

"He took off, muttered something about a score to settle with this creepy ghost chick."

"We should probably go find him then, you think the others are here as well?"

"As good a bet as any."

The trio carried on down the hall, occasionally making a few turns into adjoining ones. With the sizeable interior the school possessed, though, their job was not made easy. With every passing door, they couldn't help but wonder if their fellow stragglers were hiding inside. What was there to be afraid of, though? With no janitor, the worst obstacle they faced was the occasional, harmless ghost girl.

"We should probably try the other floors."

"Ingenious."

"You're acting disturbing unaffected by the situation."

"You could say I've faced this kind scenario, before." With this Cry lowered his head, as if to remember something truly upsetting.

"Wh-what?"

"I kid you, friend. I'm just optimistic. That's all."

Scott shot a side glare to closest associate. Cryaotic shrugged it off and began to lead them to the stair passageway.

"We should head upstairs."

"What, no, we're on the third floor, we'd have more luck downstairs," Russ argued.

"Cry, you've played this before, right? Which way do we head?" Scottjund turned to his undecided teammate.

"Uh, both, both is good. We've got to find several people anyways."

"Well, we want to find them as soon as possible. We should start with the most likely candidate."

"Come to think of it, I think we're on the second floor."

"Shut up, Cry." They near said in unison.

"If Cry's right, then we should go up the stairs."

"You know, if I was stuck in a strange Korean school, I'd want to get out, right? We should head towards the door where they're most likely to be."

"Unless they'd come searching for us."

"Guys, guys, please, just shutthefuckup. Okay? Okay? Just shutthefuckup. We should head upstairs and go down is what we should do." Cry attempted to pacify the two duelers, but with little effect, they seemed in agreeance, but still held the resentment in their eyes.

"Damn straight, lead the way." Scott smirked in his minor victory.

They ascended the steps single file, each footfall making an echoing clomp. When they found the door to the proceeding floor, the others volunteered Cry to take a looksee like the gentlemen they were.

"The coast is clear. Time for Operation: Skyhook."

"Excuse me?" Russ queried in a scoff.

"Also known as Operation: Retrieve our amigos and get the fuck out of this game."

"Hey, Cry?"

"Shut up?"

"Shut up."

They ventured down the hallway and into several adjacent ones, but to no avail, their lost battalion was nowhere to be found. They were beginning to lose hope, what if their mates weren't even in the building? There was no way of knowing. Even so, how were they supposed to leave anyhow? Cry had finished the game and only then was he allowed freedom. Would they have to endure the same thing? How long would that take? What about the woman who set fire to the gym? What if died? Horrible questions swam through Cry's mind. He found it best not to think about that, though. Not right now, anyway.

"Where the hell are they?! Maybe we should try a differ- Holy shit, what is that!?" The others look towards Scott's line of sight that would make Russ' hair go on end. A small girl in a beige, stained uniform, hair covered her face. She stood statuesque and unbothered, her crippled fingers outstretched in defining direction.

"Is, is she telling us the way to go?"

"I think so, she tends to do that. Thank you ghost girl." Cry moved forward as the remaining two stuck close behind, flinching when passing her. "Very polite of her."

"Agreed."

"Do you guys hear that?" Scottjund whispered to his traveling companions.

"It sounds like some pathetic whine. You guys wanna check it out?" Cry consulted.

"The only lead we got."

A small ways down the path led them to the source of the pitch. A mildly-frazzled man hunched against the wall spastically jarred an object against the ground pleadingly. "Come on, lighter, you see this is why we can't be friends. It's a give and take relationship and I'm the only one doing the giving."

"Oh, Battlestar, I should have known," Scott commented airly.

"Wha? Oh! Guys! Thank god, I have no idea where I am or how I got here or why or can or who."

"Stick with us, man. We got this."

"Well I certainly wasn't going to stay here by my lonesome, Russ." Battlestar pulled himself to his feet and dusted his sleeves off. "So let's move out then."

This was before a large, deafening explosion erupted from beneath them, rumbling the ground under their feet. Everyone grew silent. Each of them debating whether it'd be appropriate to speak. What was that noise? Should they go investigate? Would it be wise?

"I think I know what that was." Cry was the first to break the stillness, being the most knowledgeable of the gamespan. He knew what it was and also knew it was their only way out.

"Do tell, Cry," Russ said impatiently.

"That was that psychotic ghost lady trying to blow up the gym-area."

"What? How do you know this? Scott, how does he know this?" Battlestar uneasily questioned.

"He's played this game before."

"We're in a game? No one said anything about a game!"

"Calm down, man, we just gotta go down there and-."

"Hell no! I'm not going down there!"

"I'm going to have to agree with BS, it could be dangerous, one of us could get actually hurt." Scott was right. What if one of them did get injured or worse. Cry was drawn ablank here, why did this whole ordeal have to come about? Why did he have to lose his shit back there? Why didn't the vending machines carry iced tea. How do soybeans even make milk? They don't have utters. Strange.

"Right, well, it's our only hope for escape, so we don't have much else of a choice. Listen, I know the consequences may be dire and there's a high chance we may die, but I know this game, I've played it before once and won it barely. Though, I'm quite fairly certain that some of us will survive, are you with me?"

"What? No, are you kidding me?" Well, he did the best he could, he, unfortunately, was not gifted with the power of inspirational speech.

"Well we can't live here off soybean milk forever."

"I don't see any problem with that," Battlestar quickly answered.

"First of all, she's burning the school to the ground. Second, we won't have any video games. Come on, friends."

"I'm one for going down stairs and killing the bitch." Russ raised his hand in compliance, shortly followed by the others.

Without another word, the quartet skipped down the staircase and to the first floor, from that point on the air was filled with suffocating smoke and a track-repeating laugh. The fumes burned their eyes and forced them to squint as they fought their way into the gym through several coughing fits.

The gym was encovered with flames mechanically spreading and blocking various exit points. A woman trucked around the room, a large blade in her hand. Behind she was dragging a rather unconscious body that looked charred and unrecognizable from a distance. The body seemed to be wrapped around a fire extinguisher. This confused Cry, was that part of the game? Not that he remembered. Who could that have been? The woman placed the corpse beside the other obvious game character.

"Cry what do we do from here?"

"Oh, shit, I don't know. My memory sucks. Right, go look for fire extinguishers, I'll get the one up there." The three took off in various directions, trying to avoid the fires licking at their feet. Cry took off for the stage as the woman made her way down the other side, setting her sites on a fleeing Scottjund. Kneeling down before the body, he attempted unfurl the burnt fingers from around the metal cylinder. He didn't dare look up to the face, terrified he may witness the decaying ashes of his companion. No, no he would look, not even a glance, he couldn't bear to.

"It's Snake." Cryaotic looked up to see Battlestar, a solemn expression fell upon every outline of his face. The type B fire extinguisher fell to his feet and he remained motionless. Looking back down to the Type A he was trying to rake out from his former colleagues fingers. He still felt sick just thinking about glancing at his friends final emotions. He simply could not bring himself to as he delicately removed the item from Snake's posthumous grasp.

A cry of pain blindsided his right ear. Battlestar? He whipped his hear around to see his friend collapse under the weight of his own knees and to the ground. His timbering form revealed the hunched-over stance of the murderous bitch. The woman's unearthly laugh echoed in his eardrums, filling his mind and eyes with hate and fear. What happened to Scott? Why wasn't Russ coming to rescue him? Before Cryaotic could manage the next thought, the woman lunged for his chest, the blade injecting in his left lung. Breathing became difficult, his eyes fuzzy. The computerized world was slipping. Why did no one help him?


End file.
